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Published in: BMC Medicine 1/2012

Open Access 01-12-2012 | Opinion

Viral hemorrhagic fevers: advancing the level of treatment

Authors: Giuseppe Ippolito, Heinz Feldmann, Simone Lanini, Francesco Vairo, Antonino Di Caro, Maria Rosaria Capobianchi, Emanuele Nicastri

Published in: BMC Medicine | Issue 1/2012

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Abstract

The management of viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) has mainly focused on strict infection control measures, while standard clinical interventions that are provided to patients with other life-threatening conditions are rarely offered to patients with VHFs. Despite its complexity, a proper clinical case management of VHFs is neither futile nor is it lacking in scientific rationale. Given that patient outcomes improve when treatment is started as soon as possible, development and implementation of protocols to promptly identify and treat patients in the earliest phases of diseases are urgently needed. Different pharmacological options have been proposed to manage patients and, as for other life-threatening conditions, advanced life support has been proved effective to address multiorgan failure. In addition, high throughput screening of small molecular libraries has emerged as a novel promising way to find new candidates drugs for VHFs therapy and a relevant number of new molecules are currently under investigation. Here we discuss the current knowledge about VHF clinical management to propose a way to step up the approach to VHFs beyond the mere application of infection control measures.
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Metadata
Title
Viral hemorrhagic fevers: advancing the level of treatment
Authors
Giuseppe Ippolito
Heinz Feldmann
Simone Lanini
Francesco Vairo
Antonino Di Caro
Maria Rosaria Capobianchi
Emanuele Nicastri
Publication date
01-12-2012
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Medicine / Issue 1/2012
Electronic ISSN: 1741-7015
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-10-31

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